#piebaldism

Piebaldism is an "easy" phenotype: all kind of different mutations that results in worse functioning melanocytes can give white patches. Horses for example have piebald mutations on at least five different genes (EDNRB, KIT, MITF, PAX3 and TRPM1). Probably all those animals you listed have different and unique piebald mutations.

I think this is why it's so common: it doesn't need a specific mutation, just something that turns down pigment production. And turning something off is always easier than changing it but keeping the main functionality.

Piebaldism is observed in all kind of wild animals too, it probably often turns up spontaneously; and by all likeliness that's what happened with early domestic animals too. From that it was simple selective breeding; humans always liked special-looking animals.

Piebald Eurasian Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)

Last day of Pre-K - Zinhle “Zee” Wilson-Barnes

Found a young deer dead in the woods yesterday. She was a fawn from this spring and I'm pretty sure she was another coyote kill—they've definitely been eating on her.

She had some unique coloration on her hooves. Both rear hooves were normal black but one front hoof was all white except for the dewclaws and the other was stripey.

Brown Palm Civet (Paradoxurus jerdoni), family Viverridae, order Carnivora, Maharashtra, India

Though it is a member of the Carnivora order, it is mainly frugivorous

This individual is piebald

I'm free from my splint and I'm waiting the three months recovery period before my next surgery but like... do I start posting on Ao3 again? I don't really know. It's fun to just yap with no context and be mostly free from people asking me to comission them or for comissions from me.

I'm going to yap about Avice and his body cuz i want to. But I'm going to say while i enjoy accuracy this is all INSPIRED so yeah some things won't make sense. But the dude is a compressed star in a human body okay let me live

The name of his specific condition is Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. He does have XX chromosomes and an at least semi functional female reproductive system and even though he doesn't ovulate or have periods every month(Monthly periods weren't common in the 17th century anyways) he can still get pregnant and experiences what's called sub fertility instead of infertility or normal fertility. It means that instead of the normal 20-25% chance of getting pregnant monthly his chances are instead reduced to around 12-15%.(These are vague numbers do not quote me on this)

So basically while in utero he was developing as female but ended up getting an influx of androgen homones that caused him to develop "abnormal" genitalia. Speaking on it cuz I did the research but for the most part the specifics of his genitals aren't relevant as he refers to it just as his dick for a majority of the book. But he has a pseudo penis, or an elongated clitorus that his urethra runs through allowing it to function mostly as a penis. He can pee standing up and experience erections but he's not packing 8 inches(In the FTM community he's hung but contingencies) and then he has a vaginal opening that's usually hidden behind his dick so most people would assume that he has smaller than average testicles.

Because of the influx of androgen hormone production in his body he not only started puberty later than most but when he did he appeared to go through male puberty. His voice deepened, he grew taller(6'8") and grew quite a bit of body hair. But at the same time he grew albeit small breasts but breasts nonetheless and started having a period. Which he hid to the best of his ability.

His condition means that his hormones are naturally all over the place and very unbalanced which is a reason why his moods and emotions are usually all over the place and because of the time period there isn't much he can do about it and thankfully Ciarán is very patient and understanding with how quickly Avice can shift. It also means that when he does have children he experiences hyper lactation which again is when there's an overproduction of the hormone prolactin.

Mental health wise he has a few canonical diagnosises but I like leaving everything else up to interpretation just so people can find relation in him. But he has a panic disorder, depression and CPTSD. He's had his panic disorder since before Henry adopted him and quickly developed depression after that but his CPTSD diagnosis came from the birth and death of his first child and late daughter, Iris. I enjoy researching his mental illnesses as they make me feel better and more in control of my own.

He gets his piebaldism from his father and passed it down to both of his children. The way his piebaldism presents is technically outside the diagnostic criteria but contingencies. The areas without pigment do cause him to have white hair which makes him fun to draw. But originally when I was getting down a solid design for it, I was referencing the skull mask the COD character Ghost wears.